The tall man was drinking scotch. He sat by the restaurant window watching the rush of humanity outside, thinking private thoughts of a crusader who has foolishly and momentarily taken off all his armor. He could have been a Columbus in other times, he could have been an Essex at the side of Elizabeth. He was, instead, a tall and impressive man drinking his scotch. He was soon to be a dead man.
This was the way the reporter on the blue-headline newspaper started his story. But in addition to a city editor who had the notion that everyone was an illiterate except maybe himself, the paper also had a typesetter who thought that people enjoyed working out cryptograms while reading their newspapers. When you were dealing with illiterates, it wasn’t necessary to give the facts in the first place, and in the second place it was always necessary to garble every line of type so that the story became even more mystifying and, in many cases, practically unintelligible.
The story on page 3 of that afternoon’s edition read like this:
Thet allman was drinking scotch. He sat by the restaurant window watching the Russian humanity outside, thinking private thoughts of sex at the side of Elizabeth. He was, a crusader who has foolishly and momentarily taken off his arm. Or he could have been a Columbus in other times, he could have been an Es DRINKING HIS SCOTCH. He was soon to be a dead man.
instead, a tall and impressive man.
It really didn’t matter what the blue-headline tabloid said, because the assistant district attorney named Andrew Mulligan was inconsiderately turning a little blue on a slab in the morgue, and the district attorney himself, a man named Carter Cole, turned a very deep shade of blue mixed with red and bordering on purple when he found out that a man from his office had been inconveniently knocked off in the middle of a trial while drinking a glass of scotch.
The DA himself picked up a telephone and put in a call to the Police Commissioner, wanting to know what the hell was happening in this city when a respected and much-needed assistant district attorney couldn’t even go to a restaurant without having his brains blown out while drinking a glass of scotch. The Police Commissioner told him that he was doing everything in his power to get at the facts, after which he hung up and called the Chief of Detectives.
He asked the Chief of Detectives what the hell was happening in this city when a respected and much-needed assistant district attorney couldn’t even go into a restaurant without having his brains blown out while drinking a glass of scotch. The Chief of Detectives told him that he was doing everything in his power to get at the facts, after which he hung up and called Detective Lieutenant Peter Byrnes of the 87th Squad.
Detective Lieutenant Peter Byrnes informed the Chief of Detectives that he had called him only this morning in an attempt to solicit some assistance on this case, which was getting a little out of hand, what with people dying like flies, and what with respected and much-needed assistant district attorneys getting their brains blown out and all. The Chief of Detectives told Lieutenant Byrnes that he would certainly see to it that Capello, or whatever his name was, got all the help he needed on this case, because, and here his voice lowered, and he actually said, “Just between you and me, Pete, the DA himself was a little burned up over the situation.”
Andrew Mulligan, meanwhile, was being sliced up nicely and neatly, and being searched for a stray bullet, which, when it was found, turned out to be a Remington .308, of all things. Being dead, he still had no idea that Carella and Meyer of the 87th Squad were working on a case involving someone who was putting bullets through people’s heads, nor had he any idea how much his own death had helped the investigating cops.
By midnight that night, Carella had been assigned teams of detectives from every section of the city to assist in running down the sniper. He had, in effect, a small army to work with.
Now all the army had to do was find the enemy.
10
The enemy, like all good enemies everywhere, vanished from sight.
There were no subsequent killings that week, and it seemed indeed as though detectives from all over the city had been mobilized to combat a ghost. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday passed uneventfully. The cruelest month was gone, taking part of May with it, and the murderer seemed to have disappeared.
On Sunday, May 6, two detectives from the 12th Precinct, near the Calm’s Point Bridge downtown, decided it would be a good idea to look up Frankie Pierce. Carella had mentioned the name casually to them, as that of an ex-con who had once been a client of Randolph Norden. He had also mentioned that, in view of later developments, it seemed to him Pierce was clean, and not worth picking up. But the two detectives from the 12th were detectives/1st grade, and Carella was only a detective/2nd grade, and they didn’t much like being told how to investigate a homicide by someone whom they outranked, even if the squeal happened to be Carella’s. Besides, the two detectives from the 12th were bulls.
One was named Masterson, and the other was named Brock. The two had been working together as a pair for a long time, and they had a long series of arrests and convictions to their credit, but they were nonetheless bulls. On that first Sunday in May, with the carnelian cherry blossoms bursting in the park, and a mild breeze blowing in off the River Dix from the south, Masterson and Brock got a little restless in the stuffy-squadroom of the 12th, and decided they could use a little fresh air. And then, since they were simply cruising around the streets in the vicinity of the Calm’s Point Bridge, they decided to look up Frankie Pierce, who lived at 371 Horton in the bridge’s shadow.
Frankie Pierce had no idea he was about to be visited by detectives, or by detectives who were bulls. He was in constant touch with his parole officer, and he knew he had done nothing to break parole. He was, in fact, working at a garage as a mechanic and he had every intention of going straight, like they say in the movies. His employer was a fair-minded man who knew Frankie was on parole, but who felt that a man deserves a chance at rehabilitation. Frankie was a good worker and a hard worker. His employer was satisfied with him and had given him a raise only the month before.
But Frankie made a couple of mistakes on that first Sunday in May when the bulls named Masterson and Brock visited him. The first mistake he made was in assuming the two detectives were only detectives and not bulls. The second mistake he made was in believing that people are understanding.
He had a date that afternoon with a girl who was the cashier in a restaurant near the garage. He had told the girl he was an ex-con because he wanted to get things straight with her from the start. The girl had looked him over very carefully and then said, “What do I care what you used to be?” and that was that. He was going to take her over to the park, where they would go rowing for a while, and then have dinner at the outdoor restaurant, and then maybe walk up the Stem and take in a movie later. He was standing before the mirror putting on his tie when the knock sounded on his door.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“Police. Open up, Frankie.”
A puzzled look crossed his face. He looked at himself in the mirror, as though expecting an answer from his own image, then shrugged and walked to the door.